Abstract

As medical students at the new University of Central Florida College of Medicine (UCF COM), we recognized a common interest and desire among students to learn and develop skills in research, teaching, and medical education. Integrating these skills into our medical school curriculum will help us adapt to face the challenges of health care. These challenges include new therapies to the emerging antibiotic resistance, promoting epidemiological efforts to handle the increasing proportion of elderly patients, and incorporating the effective use of technology in our medical practice. More than ever, we must prepare ourselves to fulfill multiple roles as competent teachers, researchers, scientists, and physicians in order to provide the most effective care. To address these needs, we created a student group named Students Interested in Academic Medicine (SIAM), to supplement our curriculum with opportunities to discuss the latest research, learn from our peers, and practice our teaching skills. SIAM has allowed students to improve their ability to use and understand peer-reviewed literature, foster multi-disciplinary collaboration, communicate more effectively with peers, mentors, and patients, and learn key knowledge to become successful educators.